Oedo Island

Last week, there was a Korean holiday in the middle of the week and so we got the day off from work. After sleeping in (apparently we really needed this because we slept for 12 hours), we made breakfast and decided to take the ferry to one of the near-by islands. On one of my business trips to Korea last year, I had arranged to do this tour with a big group of colleagues and we had a great time - I had been told by many Koreans that this was a beautiful place to visit and one of the best things to do in Geoje Island. Since I had so much fun visiting there, I really wanted to take Ryan. We ventured out after brunch and drove to the ferry dock. On the way there, we discovered that we had forgotten our camera battery, but we were close so we decided to get tickets in case it was crowded with visitors. After several minutes to trying to describe what we wanted, she finally showed us a price on the calculator and we paid her for it. The tour was at 1:00 PM and she wrote on our ticket that we needed to be on the ferry at 12:45 PM. Well, we still needed our camera battery, which was about a 35-40 minute round trip, so we started running to our car to hit the road so we could make it back as quickly as possible.

We were in such a hurry that we hit EVERY red light...of course. We got all the way home, I ran upstairs, grabbed the camera battery and some snacks, and ran back in the car. By this point it was 12:45 PM (the time we were supposed to be getting on the ferry) and we started to think that we might not make it, but we wanted to try anyway. Luck was on our side on the way there, because we didn't hit any red lights...and then we ended up behind some slow cars on a one lane road. All of a sudden, another lane opened up (it's there for the hill portion of the roads so you can pass the slow cars) and we gunned it past all of them. Luckily for us, in Korea, they do not have police officers pulling you over for speeding - instead, they have cameras that track your speed and take your picture if you are speeding - they give you plenty of warning that they're coming so Ryan did not get caught driving too fast.

We pulled into the parking lot for the ferry at 12:59 PM - Ryan slowed the car down a little bit and I jumped out and started running to the ferry. The man taking tickets was laughing at me and gave me a smile that told me they would wait and it's okay as I franticly tried to tell him my husband was still coming and not to leave. We strolled onto the ferry and sat down in the last 2 remaining seats. Not even 2 seconds after we sat down, the ferry pulled out to begin the trip. The captain came on to talk to everyone (in Korean, of course). Everyone giggled at the beginning so I'm pretty sure that he started out by saying, "We're sorry that we're leaving a few minutes late...these silly Americans don't know how to be on time." We just smiled and nodded, having no clue what he actually said for the remainder of the tour.

The ferry took us out into the National Park called Haegeumgang which are a bunch of rock islands near where we live. The ferry driver drove us right into one of the big rock islands which was great! I had never seen islands like this before!

In the crevices of the rock island 

The boats going through the rock island

The ferry ride around the island was really beautiful and the water was surprisingly  green!

Seagulls on the rocks

As we got close to Oedo Island (pronounced kinda like "way-dough") the captain was pointing to his watch and talking about time - we still don't know the vocabulary for time so we weren't sure when we were supposed to head back, but luckily for us, the boat captain was nice enough to write the time down on a piece of paper and gave it to us. We got off the ferry and we started walking up around the island which is a huge botanical garden. It was great!

Ryan posing with one of the Greek god statues! 

Posing with one of the Greek statues

Lots of colorful flowers

The flowers were so bright and beautiful! 

They had all kinds of funny statues all over the place

We thought these flowers looked a little Dr. Seuss style...

After we walked around the island, we grabbed an ice cream...they only had one flavor which was light green and it turned out to be melon flavored which was pretty good. 

On the way home, we took a detour and drove around some of the rice fields that were newly planted and took a few pictures. They actually plant these things with machines...which is how they get the lines so straight. They can plant a whole patty in like 20 minutes. 

The photographer at work

Anyways, it was a really great day! :)